U.S. wildcatters have priced their Australia-focused shale-gas developers’ IPO within range at $24 a share, raising $75 million in the offering that was more than halved from a 6.5-million-share plan to 3.125 million shares.

The E&P, Sydney-based Tamboran Resources Corp., will begin trading June 28 on the NYSE as TBN.

Proceeds will fund ongoing drilling in Tamboran’s Shenandoah South pilot in the Velkerri shale in the Beetaloo Basin, where it holds 4.7 million contiguous gross acres; net, 1.9 million acres. The Beetaloo is in north-central Australia south of Darwin.

Underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to 468,750 additional shares at $24. The option was reduced from initial expectations of up to 975,000 shares.

The estimated IPO price range was between $24 and $27, with the uppermost price and number of shares raising as much as $202 million. The total raise will be $86.25 million instead, if all of the option is subscribed.

Among those buying the pre-trading shares were existing shareholders Sheffield Holdings LP and Liberty Energy. Tamboran trades on the Australian Securities Exchange as TBN.

U.S. shale wildcatter Bryan Sheffield held 16.7% of Tamboran’s stock prior to the IPO. Sheffield sold his Permian shale producer Parsley Energy Inc. to Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021 for $7.6 billion.

U.S. pressure pumper Liberty Energy, which is sending a frac spread to the Shenandoah South project, held 4.6%.

Another investor, U.S. shale rig operator Helmerich & Payne Inc., has a FlexRig3 drilling for Tamboran on location south of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Tamboran is chaired by Dick Stoneburner, co-leader of the Haynesville and Eagle Ford shale discoveries.

The target, the Middle Velkerri B formation, is at more than 6,000 ft. Core, logs and other data indicate it is similar to the Marcellus Shale in its geophysical properties, according to Tamboran, which has drilled six operated appraisal wells.

Its most recent, Shenandoah South #1H, had a 30-day IP of 3.2 MMcf/d from a 1,644-ft section of lateral completed in 10 stages. The 60-day flow was 3.0 MMcf/d; the 90-day flow, 2.9 MMcf/d.

Normalized for a 10,000-ft lateral, the 30-day flow is equivalent to 19.5 MMcf/d, Tamboran reported in its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The IPO’s joint book-running managers were BofA Securities, Citigroup and RBC Capital Markets. Co-managers were Johnson Rice & Co. and Piper Sandler.

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